How To Stay Young

Hi guys I'm back! I've been quite busy these past few days but it's nice to know that there are still visitors in the site and my overall rating has not plummeted way down too low hehe! Hope you like this colorful and lively post I received from my e-mail.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. (keep this in mind if you are one of those grouches!)

3. Keep learning - learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain get idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's!

4. Enjoy simple thing.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and lots of time with HIM/HER.

6. The tears happen - Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life is ourself. LIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love - whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health - If it is good, preserve it; if it is unstable, improve it; if it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

11. Lastly, send this to all of your friends and you'll be happy.

A Violinist in the Metro

Forwarded e-mail

Do we notice the beauty that life presents us?

A man sat at a metro station in Washington, DC, and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100 each. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

On Fear

Dear Friend,

If you are struggling with fears of all sorts like I do and if these fears are hindering you from living a fuller life, here's an inspiring quote from Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect Olympic 10 score:

"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet."

Pink Mask is Weak

Maskman Episode 20 Part 1



Maskman Episode 20 Part 2

The Maskman series is back on Youtube. Thanks to some European guys! This is one of my favorite episodes where Momoko (Pink Mask) fights it out to the end with the bitchy underground monster. She is fighting for her principles and her students but her heroic deed will prove fatal for the team. This is the best Momoko episode! Love it!

Life's Ultimate Purpose

Rick Warren

(Note: I want to share with you this incredible short interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren that a good friend of mine forwarded to me. You will enjoy the new insights that Rick has, with his wife now having cancer and him having wealth from his best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. Read on.)

People ask me, what is the purpose of life?

And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for...

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her-It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.

Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.

Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.

Painful moments, TRUST GOD.

Every moment, THANK GOD.

Screwtape's Strategies and Pornography

(Note: This is addressed most especially to fathers addicted to internet porn. I pray that you will gather enough strength to fight this plague menacing you and your family. Pray much to St. Joseph and seek help with other upright Christian men.)

Alias Screwtape

My Dear Wormwood:

For your careful review, I have outlined below our strategies for destroying faith and family life. Destroy this secret message immediately after reading it. This classified material comes from the lowest regions.

The chief way we attack the family is by neutralizing the protector. Once we neutralize the father, then the children are ours whenever and wherever we want them. And want them we do! Those despicable little ones make my black blood boil. Every time I see one of these wretched children, it reminds me of the Enemy's holiness and love of purity. Our plan is to attack their purity so that they will belong to us for all time. Therefore, we need only to neutralize the guardians of these little monsters - and then we can pollute their miserable souls.

Thankfully, my enemies in the modern era are slow to realize the importance of a father in protecting his family. They play into our hands when they think that a father's protective role ended in the bygone era when he defended the family against wild animals and invading savages. This incredible ignorance is utterly delightful! Little do they know that a father's guardianship of his family is more valuable now than at any time in history. Spiritually, they are sound asleep. For a little while they paid heed to the Enemy's warning to Pope Leo XIII about our plans for the modern era. It even looked like we would be defeated when our enemies enlisted the aid of our arch-opponent Michael. Fortunately, most of our little targets have forgotten about the arch-opponent Michael, and our plans proceed apace.

Towards the end of the century, just when our plans for destroying the faith by destroying the family were nearing completion, the Enemy sent that contemptible "pope for the family." (Pope John Paul II) Decades of work were at risk when for the first time in history a pope (Ugh! I hate that word!) wrote a letter directly to families throughout the world. Amazingly, he seemed to know just how to warn families about our subtle (and not so subtle) plans for destroying the family. When things looked as if our work was about to be undone - the most wonderful thing happened! The families of the world didn't even bother to read the contemptible pope's letter. Oh, how wonderful this was. In our lower realm there was rejoicing for months over the nearly complete apathy concerning this teaching.

Now as we begin this new millennium, we must use technology to bring our master plan to completion by utilizing Internet pornography. Already we have spiritually neutralized millions of the Enemy's men with pornography. Over the next few years we can surely make millions more spiritual midgets, who we can then manipulate at will.

With Internet pornography we can finally bring down the guardians of the Christian family. The fools still don't realize that the technological temptations are waging war against their very souls, bringing to completion an over-a-century long campaign to destroy the faith by destroying the family. Since it is working so exceedingly well, I suggest that we continue to use every technological innovation to pump pornography to Christian fathers. Just think of the wonderful new digital temptations we will soon be sending out over broadband!

Remember, every man addicted to pornography is caught in the snares of what the Enemy calls grave sin. With pornography we have crippled their ability to spiritually protect their families. After they are ensnared in pornography, their families (their marriages and their children) are vulnerable to our attacks. Sure, these men still appear fine on the outside as they go to church, but we know that their hearts have been captured by pornography.

And since sons usually follow in the father's footsteps, the sins of the fathers will run down through the generations, and we can rest assured that the future generations will belong to us.

A delightful by-product of pornography addiction is that it is so effective in creating turmoil in marriages. Of course, we have been attempting to destroy marriages as a vital part of our overall plan. A husband's pornography addiction has shown a unique ability to undermine trust and intimacy between spouses. The addiction creates turmoil, heartbreak, and bewilderment in the hearts of those detestable Christian wives.

As far as Sundays in church go, there is only one thing to do. Just make sure things stay as they are - nice and quiet. The last thing we need are homilies about specific sins, like pornography. If a damaging homily is somehow preached, make sure you scramble any attempts to organize support groups to assist men unable to free themselves from our work. Just let the poor devils struggle alone - of course we know that they are not alone in their pornography addiction, don't we?

Finally, we must keep up our guard against the Head of THAT family (St. Joseph). Never forget how the Head of THAT family was used by the Enemy to ruin our dear servant Herod's plans to kill the so-called Holy One (Christ). There are centuries-old rumors from the upper regions that the Head of THAT family will be brought into service at a critical time in history. The last thing we want is a repeat of the first century.

It has taken immense effort, but we have managed to thoroughly confuse modern man (and much of the church) about the meaning of true manhood and masculinity. We need impure men, especially fathers, to continue leading the culture towards our regions. We must therefore keep fathers from contact with the Head of THAT family, so that they don't have any effective models of manly purity and righteousness.

Yet we need to be realistic in our strategies. If we cannot keep men away from the Unmentionable One, then at least we can chip away at some of the truth to keep things manageable for us. Keep their beliefs abstract. Men look up to tangible role models. Just be sure they don't discover the Enemy's perfect model for fathers, or our plans will get derailed. We can never hope to lead fathers devoted to that so-called "Just Man" deeper into the depraved delights of pornography.

Yours Diabolically,
Screwtape

(Source: dads.org)

Effects of Pornography

Note: I got this article from the ProLife Philippines website. This is in line with my online campaign against pornography. To all bloggers out there I hope you can also blog about your personal experience in dealing with porn or maybe somebody else's story. This can help raise awareness on the danger of online porn.

Pornography and sadistic violence debases sexuality, corrode human relationships, exploit individuals especially women and young people, undermine marriage and family life, foster antisocial behavior and weaken the moral fiber of society itself.

Pornography and Violence in the Communications Media: A Pastoral Response

Pornography is a cancer that permanently damages the minds and lives of people. No one can consider himself or herself immune to its corrupting effects. Dr. Victor Cline, clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Utah, has found "a near universal 4-Factor Syndrome" among users of pornography.

First, Cline says, there is an addicting effect. Everybody is vulnerable to this type of addiction, from the most dangerous sex offenders as well as the normal person. People get hooked on milder pornography and feel like coming back for more and still more, as powerful as drugs.

Dr. James L. McGough of the University of California in his research on memory sounded a warning: "If a person is emotionally, including sexually aroused at the time of experiencing or witnessing something, a chemical called epinephrine is released into the bloodstream. It goes to the brain and looks in a very vivid memory of the experience or event. We all have a library of unwanted images mostly sexual. We may hate them, but the epinephrine has locked them in and we cannot get rid of them, no matter how pious, how religious or how strong a conscience we have. Second, according to Cline, there is an escalation effect. The milder porn is no longer enough to satisfy. So, the user wants more explicit, rougher, more deviant kinds of sexual materials for sexual "highs" or "turn-ons". Third, the porn addict undergoes disensitization. With continued exposure, what at first offends becomes acceptable and then craved no matter how gross or deviant. Repeatedly seeing the obscene and offensive material makes it seem normal, rendering individuals morally numb and personally insensitive to the rights and dignity of others. It can be most confusing especially to children, who may not be able to distinguish readily between fantasy and reality, therefore regard this as acceptable behavior, suitable for imitation.

Leading sexual violence researchers Neil Malamuth, Ed Donnerstein, and Dolf Zillman state agree with Cline and state that in general, "exposure to these materials, whether violent or nonviolent, coercive or non-coercive, experimentally increases male aggressive behavior against women, and decreases both male and female sensitivity to rape and the plight of the rape victim. Both males and females, after viewing this material, judge the female rape victim to be less injured, less worthy, and more responsible for her own plight." In the fourth and final step, Dr. Cline states, "My patients begin to act out what they have been viewing. They turn their fantasies into reality." The sight of obscene pictures stimulates the sexual urge. This leads to another sensation, the desire to release the turbulent emotion, at the start, mostly through masturbation. If a sexual partner is available, he "acts out" what he sees in the porn material with his partner. Other tendencies to act out come in the form of compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting of massage parlors, child molestation, rape, etc.

Pornography proclaims men's control over women, primarily for sexual satisfaction. It reduces women to the level of useful object for men's pleasure and use. Thus, sexual activity is considered as a continuing frenzied search for personal gratification rather than as an expression of enduring love in marriage, therefore undermining a healthy and wholesome family life.

100 Things To Do Before You Die

I should have made it 100 Things To Do This New Year but I doubt if any of us can do the following tasks before 2009 comes to a close, so just relax and browse through this list of to-do things. You can make your own version though. I got this on the internet (I changed some of them), but personally I'm listing down things I want to accomplish this year. Have fun!


1. Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open.
2. Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
3. Swim with a dolphin.
4. Skydive.
5. Have your portrait painted.
6. Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
7. Go snorkeling.
8. Watch the launch of the space shuttle.
9. Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
10. Be an extra in a film.
11. Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details.
12. Go on a cruise with your loved one.
13. Ride a train going to the province.
14. Learn to rollerblade.
15. Own a room with a view.
16. Brew your own beer.
17. Learn how to take a compliment.
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month.
20. Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.
21. Join a local TV game show and donate some of your winnings to charity.
22. Put your name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon.
23. Send a message in a bottle.
24. Ride a camel into the desert.
25. Get to know your neighbors.
26. Plant a tree.
27. Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
28. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
29. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
30. Learn to ballroom dance properly.
31. Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
32. Be the boss.
33. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
34. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
35. Sit on a jury.
36. Write the novel you know you have inside you.
37. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
38. Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once).
39. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
40. Be someone's mentor.
41. Shower in a waterfall.
42. Ask for a raise.
43. Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
44. Teach someone illiterate to read.
45. Visit the Great Wall of China.
46. Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself.
47. Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time.
48. See a lunar eclipse.
49. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
50. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
51. Experience weightlessness.
52. Sing a great song in front of an audience.
53. Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
54. Drive across your country from coast to coast.
55. Make a complete and utter fool of yourself.
56. Wet yourself in the rain.
57. Write your will.
58. Sleep under the stars.
59. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country.
60. Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
61. Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
62. Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
63. Forgive your parents.
64. Learn to juggle with three balls.
65. Drive a 10-wheeler truck.
66. Find a job you love.
67. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
68. Overcome your fear of failure.
69. Raft through the Grand Canyon.
70. Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
71. Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
72. Grow a garden.
73. Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
74. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
75. Accept yourself for who you are.
76. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
77. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
78. Go up in a hot-air balloon.
79. Get a front row seat of your favorite concert artist.
80. Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
81. Be able to handle: your tax forms, Jehovah's Witnesses, your banker, telephone solicitors.
82. Give to a charity -- anonymously.
83. Send a poor but deserving kid to school.
84. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
85. Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
86. Fart inside an elevator.
87. Take pictures of tourist spots and make a photoalbum of it.
88. Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch.
89. Create your own web site.
90. Visit the Holy Land.
91. Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
92. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
93. Create your Family Tree.
94. Learn archery.
95. Have your favorite pizza delivered to your house and give the pizza delivery man twice the amount of what you ordered.
96. Make your own cookbook recipe.
97. Learn to bartend.
98. Run a marathon.
99. Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile.
100. Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.

Suggestions are welcome.

New Year, New Me

This new year, I have one new year's resolution - just one. This new year, I resolve to make use of my time wisely. Time flies so quickly and it is something I can't get back. I must make conscious effort to make time work for me - to avoid idleness, be more productive, and put on more meaning to my existence. I resolve to make each moment count and avoid procrastination because time is precious.

I have never felt so hopeful in my life. Tonight, it's going to be very noisy outside and there is the usual media noche at the strike of midnight. Year in and year out it has always been the same - loud firecrackers to ward off the evil spirits, 12 pieces of round fruits for a prosperous year ahead, and other crazy things we do to make our life better for the coming year, and yet the much needed change is seldom seen because deep in our hearts we fail to silence the noise and contemplate. We fail to look inside to see what things needed to be changed.

Make this new year a different one. Make some life-shaking, earth-shattering changes in your life so that when 2009 ends, you have indeed something to celebrate.

Happy New Year!

Homosexuality: Pope Puts Stress on Gender Roles

Pope Benedict has called for "an ecology of the human being." Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. He explained that defending God's creation was not limited to saving the environment, but also protecting man from self-destruction.

The pope was delivering his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff. His words, later released to the media, emphasised his total rejection of gender theory. Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurs the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.

Gender Theory
Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender, and how people perceive their biological identity. Gay and transsexual groups, particularly in the United States, promote it as a key to understanding and tolerance, but the pope disagreed. When the Roman Catholic Church defends God's Creation, "it does not only defend the earth, water and the air... but (it) also protects man from his own destruction," the pope said.

"If tropical forests deserve our protection, humankind... deserves it no less," the 81-year-old pontiff said, calling for "an ecology of the human being." It is not "outmoded metaphysics" to urge respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman," he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican's sumptuous Clementine Hall. The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

(Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm)

A Prayer for Christmas

God give us eyes this Christmas
to see the Christmas Star.
And give us ears to hear the song
Of angels from afar.

And, with our eyes and ears attuned
for a message from above,
Let "Christmas Angels" speak to us
of hope and faith and love.

Hope to light our pathway
when the way ahead is dark.
Hope to sing through stormy days,
with the sweetness of the lark.

Faith to trust in things unseen
and know beyond all seeing.
That it is in our Father's love
we live and have our being.

And love to break down barriers
of coloar, race and creed.
Love to see and understand
and help all those in need.

Merry Christmas!

Break It To Me Gently

I love this song even if I'm single. Mark Bautista sings it well...with emotion and all.

Happy Holidays!

The Spirit of Advent

Because of original sin, man naturally grows in vice rather than in virtue. The first age of man is characterized by thoughtlessness; this grows into love of pleasure and, in old age, develops into love for wealth.

So, John the Baptist came and announced the coming of Christ who would have the unrewarding task of instilling in men "a feeling for their own sins." John did this and paid with his head; Christ followed suit and was crucified.

They were both killed by the Jews, a senseless people, who, though guilty of the worst sins, justified themselves -- this was the cause of their destruction. "They are ignorant of God's righteousness and go about establishing their own righteousness, and have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." This was the cause of their evils.

But aren't we like this, too? Thoroughly devoid of "feeling for our sins" (i.e. ignorant of our sins and their gravity), we judge ourselves by our norms and not by the norms of God? So, John and Jesus did nothing else except to bring man to a sense of their own sins.

To be forgiven, we must be sorry for our sins. But how can we be sorry if we do not know the gravity of our sins? And how can we discover the gravity of our sins if we do not even know our sins?

We must have a "feeling for our sins" that we may condemn them. Those sins that we condemn, God will not condemn; but those sins we fail to condemn, God will condemn.

"What must we do?" Repent, reform our lives, deny ourselves. Learn to scorn the things of the earth and aim for the things in heaven. It is not possible to be repentant and to live in luxury.

True repentance is this: to know your sins and the gravity of your sins. Then to forsake your evil ways and show forth good deeds greater than the sins. . .this is the fruit worthy of repentance. So if you have stolen, return what you have stolen AND ALSO give up some of your own to the poor. If you have committed fornication, you must stop it AND ALSO abstain even from your wife for certain appointed times. Have you insulted someone?. . .then learn how to take insults hurled at you AND ALSO do good to those who insult you.

Sin is like a dart that has wounded you. You don't only remove the dart (i.e. cease from sinning); you must also heal the wound by good works. So it is not enough for the drunkard to be sober; he must also fast from food and water for a time to cure his spiritual wounds. You who look lustfully at a woman, now be modest in looking, and also deny yourselves even looking at the beauty of nature to heal the wounds of your soul. It was precisely to heal their spiritual wounds that the first Christians went to the desert.

The first step toward holiness is repentance; and the first step of repentance is to have a "feeling for one's sins," i.e. to know your sins and the gravity of your sins. He who shows forth fruits worthy of repentance, he it is who has made his crooked way straight for the Lord.

St. Augustine: "On the Gospels"

(caryana.org)

Our Lady of Guadalupe

A TRIBUTE TO MARY by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a Protestant American poet reminds all America:

"This is indeed the Blessed Mary's Land,

Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!

All Hearts are touched and softened at her name:

The priest, the prince, the scholar, and the peasant.

Alike the bandit with the bloody hand,

Pay homage to her as one ever present!

And even as children who have much offended

A too-indulgent father, in great shame,

Penitent, and yet not daring unattended

To go into his presence, at the gate

Speak to their sister, and confiding wait

Till she goes in before and intercedes.

So men, repenting of their evil deeds

And yet not venturing rashly to draw near,

With their requests, an angry Father's ear

Offer to Mary prayers and their confession

And she in Heaven for them makes intercession.

And if our faith had given us nothing more

Than this example of all womanhood,

So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good

So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure

These were enough to prove it higher and truer

Than all the creeds the world has known before."

“Hear me and understand well...that nothing should frighten or grieve you. Let not your heart be disturbed... Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? - Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego.

Today, December 12, is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Morality of Boxing

Note: Attention Manny Paquiao and all his fans. Listen. I think it's high time for all Pinoy boxing fanatics to read this article discussing the morality of boxing (and I guess all other sports similar to boxing). Personally, I don't watch boxing matches. I only catch a glimpse of high-profile fighters during the evening news. Try as I might I really don't have a taste for this sport. I know most straight guys remain glued to their seats whenever they see their boxing hero Manny Paquiao fight it out in the ring, even making this sport sort of a gambling opportunity for them to earn (or lose) extra bucks. Below is an article that might perhaps change your views on boxing.

An early 1950s boxer Laverne Roach died from injuries sustained in a professional match. This was pugilism's first televised homicide—but not its last. Twelve years later, 15 million television fans had a double treat: they watched challenger Emile Griffith scramble the brains of welterweight champion Benny Paret beyond repair, and then saw a rerun of the climactic moments of this state-supervised slaughter in slow motion.

Thus boxing history repeated itself on March 24, just as it will do in the future until informed and out­raged public opinion demands the abolition of civilized man's most atavistic sport—the manly art of mutual mayhem. For mayhem lies at the heart of the prize­fighting game, as opposed to amateur and collegiate boxing where, whatever the incidence of injury, mishap comes about by accident or human malice, and not by the nature of the art.

Ringside requiems involve a predictable reaction ­ritual. The pugilistic massacre prompts an official in­vestigation that finally leads nowhere. Humanitarians clamor for protective devices or rules that will reduce the likelihood of ring tragedies. A few sports columnists call for the abolition of prizefighting. And increasingly, of late years, moralists and preachers seize on every ring slaughter as a chance to compose a homily on the immorality of the professional boxing game.

This last development is a hopeful one. For if all teachers of morality could convince themselves and their public of the immorality of professional boxing, the days of this brutal pastime would definitely be numbered.

A dozen years ago, in this country, Catholic moral­ists seldom directed their attention to the evils of a professional boxing career. Even if they did so, they were loath to condemn it because it seemed to have wide popular approval and to encourage the ideals of clean, disciplined living and hardy virility.

Today things are very different. Perhaps most of our moralists now think that of its essence professional boxing is irreconcilable with the gospel and natural law, and they do not hesitate to make their opinion known. In this they agree with the Vatican City radio and newspaper, both of which forthrightly condemned professional boxing after the Paret tragedy, not just because it is a hazardous career whose rewards are in­commensurate with its risks, but because it is wrong in its nature, aim and methods.

The basic reason why professional boxing is wrong is easy to grasp. It lies in the uniqueness of this activity: of all contemporaneous forms of sport in which man is pitted against man, professional boxing alone has as its primary and direct object the physical injury of the contestants.

This fact alone sets prizefighting apart from other sports, no matter how risky they are in themselves or how open to human malice. In amateur and collegiate boxing, presumably, the emphasis is on skill and dex­terity, and elaborate precautions are taken to make the danger of real harm remote. But injury in a profes­sional match is no accident. The very nature of the sport is that two career men, under contract, attempt to mutilate each other for gain. The opponents system­atically attack each other's physical features and organs in a mounting crescendo of mayhem that ideally termi­nates in a violent assault on man's most delicate organ, the brain. A successful assault ends in a moment of waking helplessness called a technical knockout, or, better still, a clean KO whose symbol is the supine gladiator with a mild concussion. Any less decisive climax gets short shrift from the gallery and contributes little to a fighter's career.

Thus professional boxing stands condemned even before the statistics are compiled on occasional ring deaths and the all-too-common. The gospel law of love does not permit brethren to exchange wanton violence for mere renown or profit. There is no charity in a licensed assault that unleashes the beast in the boxer and the sadist in the spectator. As for natural justice, we who have no right to mutilate ourselves for external gain certainly cannot endow others with the right to attempt mayhem upon us by virtue of a contract.

We will welcome the day when the American people finally reject professional boxing for good, and inter it by the side of cockfighting, bearbaiting and the pub­lic execution 'of criminals.

(Source: America - The National Catholic Weekly)

Bloggers Against Pornography

I think it's high time to fight the plague of pornography in our own way. As someone who is constantly exposed to the internet the whole day, I'm no stranger to the allure and temptation of porn, and working in the comforts of my own home seems to make that a lot easier for me.

It's time to fight back.

I will be devising simple and practical ways to do this and I'm planning to post this on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

I would like to enjoin my fellow bloggers to support me in their own way. This is not just someone's personal battle; this is our fight.

Join me.


"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

You Don't Always Need an Umbrella

No, I'm not going to sing Rihanna's song here. I just want to share this beautiful inspirational thought from Ms. Deanna Beisser, author of What Will Tomorrow Bring?

We will never be able to predict the future.
Whatever happens today belongs to today,
and we all live in the moments that we are given.
What happens tomorrow will be tomorrow's reality,
and we all must wait to see how it becomes today.
The main thing to keep in mind
as you travel through life is that
tomorrow could either be a sunny day
or a wet and rainy day,
but if you carry an umbrella with you
everywhere you go,
chances are that
you will be looking for clouds
(maybe even squinting to see them)
while missing out on blue skies

Take your chances on getting wet every now and then.

Pro-Life Forum on Porn

Note: Please forward this announcement to all people concerned.


An Invitation To The Pro-Life Forum On

“The Pornography Plague”
(La Plaga de la Pornografía)

Designed for parents, guardians, teachers, counselors/life coaches, youth group advisers, catechists, pastors, lay leaders, social workers, students, and all those who deal with issue on pornography

Date :
Friday, December 5, 2008

Time:
8:00 am – 12:00 nn (registration starts at 7:30 a.m.)

Venue:
Bahay Ugnayan, Good Shepherd Convent Compound
1043 Aurora Blvd, Quezon City
(in front of PSBA and beside Katipunan LRT2 North Exit)

Fee :
P150.00 (includes snacks, handouts, and certificate)

Guest Speaker:
Ms. Ma. Perlita “Teacher Phil” E. de Leon
Faculty, Family Life and Child Development Department University of the Philippines

Pornography is tearing apart the very fabric of our society today. Yet, many of us are often ignorant of its impact and apathetic about the need to control this menace.

Listen and be enlightened by “Teacher Phil” as she presents the status of pornography in the Philippines and its psycho-social effects especially on today’s youth, counterpointed by the biblical perspective of pornography and human sexuality. Be there and share your insights during the forum discussion on how to combat pornography.

For reservations or more information, please call Ellen at 422-8877 or 911-2911. Or, you may send us a telefax at 421-7147; a text through mobile# 0919-2337783; or an email at life@prolife.org.ph. Visit our website at www.prolife.org.ph.

AIDS Report

Dear readers,

You might want to read this alarming artcile on the rise of HIV/AIDS in our country:

Government warns versus HIV danger in MSM sector

AIDS and Condoms

Note: Today is World AIDS day and I'm sharing an article regarding this topic. I got this from a Catholic blog

On a personal note, I firmly believe that abstinence and upholding of moral truth is still our best defense against the dreaded disease. Quick fixes simply aren't good enough to solve the AIDS crisis. Educating oneself about the disease is another powerful means to combat it. We simply cannot afford to be ignorant.


Briefing: Condoms are an easy but false solution to AIDS, since they encourage the behaviour (promiscuity) which spreads the disease while only reducing, not eliminating, the risk of infection. This simple point is apparently incomprehensible to the condom-pushers, but that is because they think promiscuity and contraception are good in themselves.

From LifeSite, via CFNews: Following the report that an official of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) had told media, in defiance of established Catholic teaching, that the use of condoms by HIV and AIDS-infected spouses is morally permissible, this position was soundly trounced in an article in the Vatican Newspaper L'Osservatore Romano by a member of the Pontifical Council on the Family. Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau slammed the idea of condoms for AIDS prevention, saying it cannot be proposed as a model of humanization and development.' Msgr. Suaudeau also pointed out the danger of relying upon latex condoms to prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus: 'We are asked to believe that the HIV virus, 450 times smaller than spermatozoa, can almost always be magically blocked by a condom, without taking into account that spermatozoa themselves can pass through the latex barrier in 15 out of 100 completed sexual acts.'

The condom-for-AIDS theory, while directly contradicting the teaching of the Catholic Church as repeatedly reiterated by Vatican officials, also flies in the face of recent statistics showing a correlation between increasing rates of AIDS infection and the spread of condom use in the Philippines. In 2006, the Philippine Health Secretary reported that the number of HIV/AIDS cases almost doubled in three years from about 6000 in 2002 to 11,168 in 2006. This was the same period in which private companies and UN-funded international NGOs began bringing condoms into the country. In 2004 alone, DKT, a private organization run by a well-known US pornographer, with the support of the Packard Foundation, distributed 27.8 million condoms as well as chemical abortifacients and contraceptives in the Philippines. Indeed, in many countries, statistics have shown that far from reducing the transmission of AIDS, the use of condoms has greatly exacerbated the problem.

The relentless push by foreign 'experts' for condoms is being increasingly condemned by local governments in the developing world who have seen successful AIDS prevention programmes undermined by the western obsession with latex. The first lady of Kenya said in 2006 that the western programmes pushing condoms in her country were the primary culprits in the spread of AIDS. Lucy Kibaki spoke to Kenyan schoolgirls at an awards ceremony, telling them, 'The condom … is causing the spread of AIDS in this country.' Mrs Kibaki said the rapid spread of AIDS in Kenya could be put down to pressure from abroad to use condoms instead of practising self-control. 'I am not telling you to use condoms. I am not in favour of condoms.' Officials in charge of the most successful AIDS prevention programme in Africa have recently condemned the efforts by western advisors to undermine their programmes promoting abstinence and marital fidelity.

A Ugandan official wrote a piece last week for the Washington Post, saying that the western obsession with casual sex was killing the people of his country. The spread of artificial methods of contraception in the Philippines has long been one of the major goals of the international population control movement, funded through agencies like International Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund. The Philippines was one of the countries specified in a 1974 US government document, the National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM), authored by Henry Kissinger, that re-directed the work of such international organisations as UNICEF into population control in order to protect US economic interests by lowering fertility rates in the developing world.

In 2002, the Catholic bishops conference of the Philippines issued a statement condemning the attempts by various international organisations to implement the NSSM 200 programme by pushing artificial contraceptives. Currently the attempt has been made again and the Church is vehemently opposing two pending pieces of legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives that will allow 'family planning' organisations to begin their contraceptive programmes in the strongly Catholic country. [LifeSiteNews]